Book Review: Camino Island

This book of fiction by John Grisham qualifies as one of his best writings in my view. The reader will certainly be absorbed and riveted, and as always Grisham makes a case for social justice.

A gang of five thugs with diverse backgrounds plan to break into a high-ranking eastern U.S. popular university’s archives and steal five of William Faulkner’s original manuscripts and then proceed to ransom them off for millions.

Two of the thugs are caught immediately by law enforcement, but are not talking while incarcerated. The story shifts to a female college professor who teaches creative English classes at a North Carolina University struggling to pay off her large student loan debt, who suddenly finds herself without a job due to the university’s budget situation. She is part-owner of a family owned beach house located at Camino Island in Florida. She makes a decision to move there for a few months and pursue the love of her career, which is writing fictional books. She already has had one book published that became a best seller. Out of seemingly nowhere, a stranger approaches her and offers her a very large amount of money to assist their organization in investigating the disappearance of Faulkner’s five original manuscripts stolen from the university’s archives. The organization believes that they are tied to a popular bookstore on Camino Island where the owner deals in the underground black market of rare books and manuscripts.

The woman representing the secretive organization feels that the English professor now without a job, but moving into the Camino Island’s beach house is the perfect person to help with the investigation by getting involved with the bookstore’s community, and most importantly getting close to the bookstore’s owner to discover important information for the investigation. The twists and turns that follow are fascinating and compelling, and takes the reader on a journey of the underground black market per the book selling business that people never ever knew existed.

Camino Island is a different type of fictional writing by John Grisham, but one that the reader will not soon forget!